The 20 Best TV Theme Songs of My Lifetime....Without Lyrics

Earlier this month, I profiled my 10 favorite TV theme songs with lyrics.  As promised, I'm back now with my 20 favorite theme songs that were music only.  As with the previous list, there's an embarrassment of riches, especially during the 1980s and early 90s before TV theme songs were shortened or removed entirely to make room for more commercials.

My favorite TV theme songs tend to be sophisticated, with musical arrangements that elevate to soaring highs and descend to a more relaxed climax.  A solid combination of bass, saxophone, and keyboard/synthesizer almost always wins me over.  There's something to be said for theme songs with a more laid-back arrangement as well, but I'm less likely to rate those songs in the same category as greatness as the more layered and compelling arrangements that make up most of my top-20 list.  Theme songs that are catchy but not layered enough to make my list are mid-80s action show icons "Airwolf" (1984-86) and "Knight Rider" (1982-86).  Not taking anything away from those shows' fondly remembered and heavily synthesized tunes, I just thought there were a couple dozen from my lifetime more worthy of acclaim.  Ditto for the widely acclaimed, piano-driven intro for "Hill Street Blues" (1981-87), a great tune deserving of an honorable mention but not quite near the top of my pyramid personally.  Another great honorable mention is the saxophone-heavy theme song for the John Ritter cop dramedy "Hooperman" (1987-89), but like the show itself, the song fizzled out before hitting its final note.

My last bullet point is that my ratings are about more than just the music.  Since television is a visual medium, the on-screen imagery needs to be worthy of the music.  In some cases, that is more true than others, but I give bonus points to series where the visuals define the series' brand in coordination with the music itself.  In some cases, I'll even give bonus points to a series where the quality of the visuals exceed the musical pedigree of the song itself.

Without further adieu, here's the list

#20. "Hawaii Five-O" (2010-present)....I struggled with what to do with "Hawaii Five-O".  I vastly preferred the extended theme song of the original series 1968 series to that of the truncated 2010 reboot, both aurally and visually, but the original "Hawaii Five-O" was not during my lifetime and thus disqualified by the guidelines of my list.  Elevating the second-rate imitation song from the reboot didn't seem quite right, but omitting from the list entirely such an iconic theme song that fit the culture of the series' setting and adventure theme would be even more of a travesty.  With that in mind, I decided to put the reboot's still-catchy tune in the #20 position, edging out "Cagney and Lacey" (1981-88) for the last position on my list.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7Ba_jz22sI

#19. "Boomtown" (2002-03)...One of the best cop shows of the last 20 years was NBC's "Boomtown", which was widely acclaimed but perhaps a little too out of the thematic mainstream for network television.  NBC renewed it for a second season but then abruptly canceled it, leaving only six episodes produced for season 2 that are sadly unavailable on DVD along with the episodes from season 1.  The series theme song is hard to categorize due to the era of the series, as the song is shorter and less layered than I'd prefer, but the poetic sound of the instrumentation fit the nature of the series well and was accompanied with a nice montage of historic and modern-day Los Angeles.  If the show was made 10 years earlier and this theme song went on another 20+ seconds, it might be higher up my list.  Still, it deserves to be recognized as one of the few shows since 2000 that put forth a noteworthy theme song and packed a lot into 40 seconds. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PJ_L1K2Sv4

#18. "Automan" (1983-84)....Here's an entry I just had to include for the sake of "yes, Virginia, this really was on primetime television in the mid-80s!"  You'd be hard-pressed to unearth a weirder time capsule in terms of a TV intro both in terms of massively synthesized music and the cutting-edge-at-the-time computerized effects that defined this series.  I was six years old when this limited-run 13-episode show was on and I did watch the series, but I'm guessing it would hold up quite terribly to adult eyes in the late-2010s, but I dare anyone to look away out of boredom during the 60+ seconds of surrealism that plays out before your eyes during this intro, which spectacularly includes a personified computer "cursor" copping a feel of a young woman's cleavage!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA1NT4I0s34

#17. "Wiseguy" (1987-90)....The TV crime drama was kind of stuck in a creative rut by the late 80s and one of the few that broke through with a new concept was "Wiseguy", a Stephen J. Cannell series featuring an FBI agent deep undercover in various crime families with story arcs that drug on for several episodes at a time rather than self-contained in a single episode.  The series was hit or miss, with some story arcs being very intense and satisfying while others were a little sleepier, but like most shows that were above-average on the creative inspiration front, "Wiseguy" had an inspired theme song as well, with a diverse and comprehensive array of instruments reaching a crescendo of highs and lows just as I liked best in my 80s shows.  My favorite iteration was from season 1 and they poached some great action scenes from the early episodes as a visual backdrop.  They went for a more uptempo version of the song for the shortened fourth and final season of the series.  I didn't dislike it but preferred the version from the early seasons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gwc-eZ7wzU

#16. "Hart to Hart" (1979-84)....I was too young to stay up for "Hart to Hart" during the school year as a young boy since it came on at 10/9 central, but during summers I was able to watch several episodes in my early elementary years.  I always enjoyed the show and at least some episodes hold up decent as an adult as well despite the ridiculous 80s-centric premise of a crime-fighting millionaire couple.  But the one part of every episode that still holds up 30+ years later is the catchy and stylized theme song, featuring a narrated introduction by crusty "Max" followed by an extended litany of action shots set to a soaring, pulsating musical backbeat.  Great stuff!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8sdMTT6nXo

#15. "Simon and Simon" (1981-88)....The first season of CBS's long-running detective show "Simon and Simon" featured a vocal performance of the Thrasher Brothers tune "Best of Friends".  I guess I didn't hate the song, but was pleased that the series shifted to a catchier, all-music theme song in season 2 and kept it all the way until the end of season 8.  It hit all the right notes for me as a catchy tune with a sophisticated arrangement and some action shows visuals capturing the series San Diego setting that accompanied the sound to great effect.  It's hard to overstate how a catchy song like this brought viewers to the table and may have even brought them back, particularly in the pre-You Tube era where hearing their favorite shows' theme song was a once-a-week pleasure rather than something they could simply do with the push of a button on their computer keyboard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCIGE__1b4c

#14. "T.J. Hooker" (1982-86)....While the theme song for the action-packed William Shatner cop show with its synthesized police siren backbeat was an undeniable earworm, it's the visuals accompanying song that probably succeeded in lifting it a few points on my list than it would have been just based on the song alone.  "T.J. Hooker" was second only to "MacGyver" of shows on my radar that offered a steady beat of impressive action sequences, and the 50-something Shatner did many of his own stunts to authenticate the imagery.  It's undeniable that many of the images seem pretty darn cheesy 30+ years, but the old school production style would make a show like this impossible to do today and thus pretty darn impressive on a weekly TV show's budget.  The most iconic "T.J. Hooker" intro came from seasons 1 and 2, but I think I might have narrowly preferred the intro from seasons 4 and 5 as the visuals were that much cooler.  With that in mind, I'm attaching a link to both!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f637wq8EPj0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eOBafO5Sh0

#13. "St. Elsewhere" (1982-88)...Two of the most acclaimed shows of the 80s were "Hill Street Blues" and "St. Elsewhere", and while I already gave an honorable mention to the more subdued "Hill Street" theme, the medical drama "St. Elsewhere" had a more layered theme song that impressed me more.  I must confess to not watching a lot of this series in its day as the medical drama has never been my genre of choice, but what I have seen is compelling, and the star power exhibited in the cast from the linked theme song helps explain why.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLRfhRuGNW0

#12. "The Young Riders" (1989-92)....The economics of television changed considerably in the late 80s and the action shows that dominated the airwaves just a few years earlier had been priced out of existence or sent off to exotic location shooting outside of Los Angeles.  This presented a few opportunities to TV producers, however, and the brief attempt to revive the Western genre with location work in the American West gave rise to TV's visually impressive attempt to replicate the popular feature film "The Young Guns" with a TV Western about the Pony Express.  I can't say the show ever really blew my mind content-wise during its three-season run, but it had a strong cast and a fantastic theme song with a successful combination of Western twang and late 80s tempo.  The other TV western of the era was Lee Horsley's "Guns of Paradise" (1988-91) and it also had a great albeit more traditional theme song, but "The Young Riders" nonetheless ran circles around it with one of the last truly great theme songs for an hourlong network series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca4oH6Gvie8

#11. "Spenser: For Hire" (1985-88)....There were three seasons of the Robert Urich detective show and three variations of the theme song.  Far and away my favorite was the first season with its smooth saxophone interspersed with a nicely woven strings arrangement, and I may or may not have found myself humming it incessantly while at work in the past week.  They slowed down the tempo for the season 2 version and I liked it a whole lot less, but then returned to a version closer to first season in the series' third and final season.  Unfortunately, the visuals don't quite live up to the sound for me in this intro.  There are some iconic shots of Boston but the film quality seems drearier than that of other TV show intros from the mid-80s.  Even in subsequent seasons, the visuals didn't dramatically improve in the intro.  Still, the song carries the intro, especially in season 1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coAQ1jjUa9k


#10. "The Equalizer" (1985-89)....I've always had a fascination with the mean and gritty streets of New York City captured in 1970s and 1980s pop culture.  An entire genre of dystopian films set in New York flourished in the 70s, but the small screen perfectly captured the paranoia of navigating those tough Manhattan streets in a little over 60 seconds with the intense intro from "The Equalizer".  Stewart Copeland of The Police composed the dark musical notes set to a series of paranoid images of lurking dangers, fading to the savior in the shadows at the end.  On occasion, "The Equalizer" was every bit as dark as its intro song would indicate, but it was one of the most hit or miss shows I've come across.  Exceptional episodes would be followed up by complete dog turds and that pattern continued throughout the show's four uneven seasons.  When the show was on, however, there were few shows that could rival it, and the theme song always set the mood greatly for the worthy episodes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g87nDBIyqeU

#9. "Quantum Leap" (1989-93)....The time travel drama "Quantum Leap" was among the last generation of series to place value in a quality, extended theme song and did so to great effect with a song with soaring highs and mellow lows.  The content of this series really lent itself to a variety of images, and the series editors brilliantly packaged the visuals to fit the rising and falling of the melody, with action-oriented images in the song's high points and rolling clouds, amongst other softer images, to fit the low points.  The song served as an additional draw to a curious viewer in addition to the series' clever premise.  "Quantum Leap" did a faster-tempo version of its song for season 5 and I never did care for it, so I'll stick with the music that defined the franchise for the majority of its run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE_L2NSuSNs

#8. "Soldier of Fortune, Inc." (1997-99)...First-run syndication was the low-rated refuge of most action series in the 1990s.  Some of the shows weren't bad, and the militaristic "Soldier of Fortune, Inc." fit that definition, a serviceable but ultimately soulless adventure series that ran for two seasons, the second of which featured (I kid you not) Dennis Rodman (!!) in a limited role.  And while "SOF" didn't really have the heart or charm of most the 80s action shows it was imitating, it did capture one key element of those shows in having a theme song that pitch-perfect for an adventure show.  I'm gonna go so far as it to say it was the last series to have a truly iconic theme song, at least that I'm aware of, and it's a damn shame that so few people ever got to hear it because of the series' low profile.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUA1lVXEw2o

#7. "Mission: Impossible" (1988-90)....Here's another show where I struggled with placement, but for different reasons than "Hawaii Five-O".  The late 80s remake of the "Mission: Impossible" from 20 years earlier featured an extended theme song that I liked just as much as the original song, but it still feels a bit like I'm shoehorning a song from before my time into the list.  That's not the end of the world I guess so I'll include the iconic song in the top-10 where it belongs with its well-captured "spy caper" melody set to a thumpier beat on this Australian-produced extension of the original series that kept Peter Graves, with some stylish visuals to match the music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKlf-Ei_br4

#6. "Unsolved Mysteries" (1988-99)....."Unsolved Mysteries" was reality-crime rubbish with no business crowding the primetime schedule, but it was very well-made rubbish.  Narrator Robert Stack was the Rod Serling of his time, and with the aid of some slickly edited footage and actor re-enactments, lent an aura of genuine creepiness to the conveying of these real-life crime stories.  The forced "don't watch alone" tagline accompanying contemporary "Dateline mysteries" are amateur hour compared to Robert Stack's contributions to the genre a generation ago, and the haunting tone of "Unsolved" was set in the opening salvo with the skin-crawlingly eerie intro music.  My only grievance with the intro is that it runs about 20 seconds too short.  If the composers had mastered one more layer of ear candy as perfect as the song's peak, this song would be a strong contender for my top spot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scVca0XDWkU

#5. "Falcon Crest" (1981-90)....In addition to the crimefighters and action shows that dominated the airwaves in the 80s, the decade was also known for its trashy but fun primetime soap operas, and almost all of the successful ones had excellent theme songs.  If my list was extended to a top-25, "Dynasty" would have been included on my list as well, but CBS's Friday night soap duo of "Dallas" and "Falcon Crest" featured the best intros of the genre.  "Falcon Crest" was essentially the same show as "Dallas", except set in northern California wine country instead of the Texas oil fields, they had very different theme songs introducing viewers to their large casts, with "Falcon Crest" serving a much more orchestral sound.  The colorful Bay Area visuals contributed nicely to a very memorable opening, but the dramatically arranged music would have carried it even with bleak visuals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbAJaSjD5KU 

#4. "Dallas" (1978-91)....The most highly rated of the 80s primetime soaps narrowly gets the edge for the best theme song on my list.  The iconic images of the Texas plains and oil farms with the slow-shifting frames really gave the "Dallas" theme a distinctive profile and the song itself was complex and addictive with an outstanding crescendo at the end to fit the image of the Southfork estate.  It was very close to a draw for me between the songs for "Dallas" and "Falcon Crest", but a triple image of the timeless blond hottie Charlene Tilton is as definitive of a tiebreaker as there's ever been in "Dallas's" favor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsVZUJVVaIE 

#3. "Miami Vice" (1984-89)....Even in an era where a lot of shows had larger-than-life theme songs, "Miami Vice" took it to a different level with the booming synthesized Jan Hammer composition that's unlike just about anything else I've heard set to flashy and contemporary images of 80s Miami.  After a handful of episodes, an extra layer of instrumentation was added to original song and set the stage for the iconic "Miami Vice" intro.  The series went dark, stylistically and thematically, in season 3 with some great new images added to the theme song that I thought outshined the softer imagery from the first two seasons.  It's hard to find a version of the season 3 theme with good audio though, so I'll include a copy of each, the first being from the early seasons with the cleaner sound, and the second with the darker imagery that worked even better for me visually.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEjXPY9jOx8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HvVrcjgbeI

#2. "MacGyver" (1985-92)....I'm sure it's no surprise to anybody that my favorite TV series of all-time also rates right up there for its theme song.  The first-rate composition from composer extraordinaire Randy Edelman hits one quality note after another and captures the science nerd aspect of the series as well as the high adventure flourish in a sweeping 92-second roller coaster ride, but just as vital to making the "MacGyver" theme work is the imagery.  The opening moments convey the tinkering, jerry-rigged nature of the hero's trademark handiwork while the rest of the song captures images of Richard Dean Anderson in high-adventure mode, the actor's stuntwork enabling more convincing close-up images of his heroics than just about any other adventure series could do.  The season 1 variation of the theme song will always be my favorite.  The later season version of the song wasn't my favorite version, but both need to be seen for the variety of high-adventure images to match with the music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hAgFxKIm7Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AEOWTN7rIE

#1. "L.A. Law" (1986-94).....For years I grumbled about quintessentially 80s legal drama "L.A. Law" outshining "MacGyver" when it came to industry and media recognition, stealing all the awards even in technical categories where it wasn't in "MacGyver's" league.  So it's with no small irony that I'm now elevating "L.A. Law" to the top of the theme song pyramid ahead of "MacGyver".  I have no background in musical composition but can recognize a comprehensive masterpiece when I hear it, and the broad spectrum of instruments fused together to perfect effect to construct the "L.A. Law" theme song knows no peers as far as I'm concerned.  The imagery backing up the song is flashy and colorful, but the sets of law firms can't match the high-adventure visuals on the "MacGyver" theme.  Still, I'm giving credit where credit is due here and acknowledging a peerless musical introduction to a TV show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DouX9Ubw-Xw

There's the list.  I'm sure no two people's lists would be alike but this is my submission.  Anyone outraged by any omissions from my list is free to add their own preferences in the comments and/or throw tomatoes at me.